When looking to address new items for the 2018 Annual Piping Community of Practice (CoP), the Engineering and Planning Department's Mechanical Engineering Division (Code 260) noted the high rates of union joint failures across all platforms during availabilities at Norfolk Naval Shipyard (NNSY). After identifying the issue, Code 260 and the Pipe Shop (Shop 56) hit the ground running to find a solution.

A simple change from an o-ring to a flat gasket could equate to a 90% savings.

"For the last five years, an average of 16.5 percent of all test failures were due to leaking union joints," said Code 267 Floyd Beckwith. "These leaking joints are mostly attributed to misaligned o-rings and retainer rings that are placed into the joints."

"There’s a process instruction that tells us how close the joints need to be; however, when you’re on a ship and in those tight conditions, the o-rings and retainer rings have been known to crush or cut under the pressure and the alignment," said Code 260 Embedded Shop Engineer David Eckstein. "Unfortunately we don’t find out about these faults until the testing phase of the project. With an unreliable method for providing first-time quality work for the shipyard, we looked for a change."

In their research, Code 267 and Shop 56 identified a 2002 Puget Sound Naval Shipyard letter authorizing the use of flat gaskets in lieu of o-rings and retainer rings in the ground joint unions. The option, though noted in the letter, was not implemented across all four public shipyards.

"As soon as we found this to be a possible avenue, we hit the ground running on if it would be possible," said Beckwith. "We researched the option and began performing tests in Shop 56 to utilize flat gaskets created on the flat gasket cutter as a replacement for the o-rings and retainer rings. We have found a lot of success with the flat gaskets so far and we plan to use these starting with the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) project. With continued success, we hope to extend their uses even further across the fleet."

Code 960 Superintendent John Tuthill said, "The cool thing about this project is that we were able to identify a problem and work together to go and fix it. We took innovative ideas and put them to the test, finding that they do work well to the mission of the shipyard. The flat gaskets are self-centering which gives us the highest confidence of first time quality work based on our testing."

The projected savings for utilizing the flat gaskets in lieu of the o-rings and retainer rings is approximately 90 percent savings in test failures as well as a savings of 379 man-days per year.

"I’m excited to see how this has developed for our shipyard. It will be a game changer in taking a cumbersome process and making it efficient," said Tuthill, who noted that innovative ideas and folks seeking change played a big part in addressing the issues. "I very much believe that we at the shipyard need to be more accepting of change. We’re an organization that’s older than 250 years now but we don’t have to do the work like we always have been. There are new people coming through the gates with fresh ideas and we should always be willing to listen and try to innovate. Sure, it may not always work out but nothing will change if we don’t take those first steps. I say we let the workforce of today help to improve the innovations of tomorrow."

"This is something that may look small in comparison to huge innovations but this small idea will be making a huge impact to the shipyard," said Beckwith. "We're still in the testing phase but savings are projected to be huge. If successful, this will greatly benefit our workforce. We take a load off their shoulders by ensuring the process works in their favor. This is a huge win for us all!"

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